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Brotherly fighting
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___There are times when I stand in the doorway of our boys’ bedroom at night, staring in at their serene figures dreaming blissfully, and I marvel at their sweetness, their loveliness, the joy they bring.
___And just as the warmest feeli
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MARK WINGFIELD
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ngs of family and home begin to sweep over me, I sometimes am struck with a peculiar question: Are these the same two children who less than an hour ago had each other in headlocks, screaming as though the world were coming to an end?
___ Surely this is one of the great mysteries of life: How can the angelic and the ugly inhabit the same child?
___ This is one of those cases where twins studies might aid the cause of parental research. You see, we’ve been told that identical twins, such as our boys, naturally get along better than fraternal twins or siblings of different ages.
___ I think this probably is true, but if it is, I’m left to wonder how in the world other siblings survive through elementary school.
___ Sibling rivalry is something that’s impossible for me, as an only child, to really understand. Although my mother loves to tell the story of the time I was about 7 or 8, and the music minister’s son, my best friend, spent 10 days with us while his parents went to Glorieta.
___ I came dashing into the house from where we had been playing and breathlessly announced to my mother: "There’s a fight outside! There’s a fight outside!"
___ "Between who?" my mother inquired.
___ "Me and Alan!" I reported.
___ Leave it to an only child to take on the roles of both player and reporter in the same fight.
___ I guess the point is that even in the best of situations, when people work and live close together, disagreements are inevitable. That’s why next time Luke and Garrett give the impression they are going to kill each other, I’m going to try to remember how angelic they look at bedtime.
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___Ah, yes, sibling rivalry. If Luke and Garrett follow in their mother and uncle’s footsteps, all I can say to Mark is, "You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!"
Granted, my brother is four years older than me and being
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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different genders probably didn’t help matters. The only equality in the whole equation was that Mother was usually on my side. But that didn’t always save me from being thrown in an unheated pool fully clothed or locked in a closet for hours (well, OK, maybe it was more like 30 minutes, but it seemed like hours).
___ Our boys get along quite well most of the time. I love to watch them put their imaginations to work as they create a Beanie Baby baseball team or pretend to be different Pokemon (until they start pouncing on each other).
___ As they get older, the hardest aspect of their play for me to understand and deal with is their constant need to be so physical. That is where the difference between boys and girls is most evident to me. Kicking, hitting and wrestling are common occurrences in our household, not to mention the need to turn everything into a competition.
___ Their energy is incredible. At a recent Cub Scout pack meeting, one of the mothers turned to me with the words, "The testosterone in this place is overpowering."
___ What happened to my sweet little innocent boys? I treasure the stolen moments when they return to Mom and actually want to cuddle--when they are sick or tired or sad, or just need a little extra TLC. And even more moving is when they show concern for each other. The other day when his brother was sick, Luke shared several of his own stuffed animals and gave Garrett a sweet hug.
___ God has given them a special bond of twinship that will be always be with them as they grow up and enter adulthood. Let’s hope they don’t kill each other first.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly.
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